


you come back to what you need

by HeartonFire



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Confessions, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Punisher Season 2 Compliant, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:19:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartonFire/pseuds/HeartonFire
Summary: Karen tries to move on after the hospital, but it's harder than she expected.





	you come back to what you need

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [mxdani](https://mxdani.tumblr.com) for the edits and feedback. <3

Blue eyes. Sometimes grey. Sometimes a little bit green.

But never brown.

Never that brown that’s almost black with rage and fear. Never that brown that’s warm and gentle against a backdrop of bullets and bloodshed. Never that unfathomable brown that cuts so deep you know you’ll bleed out before help can even reach you. 

And that was fine, Karen thought. 

Their first date was for coffee, at a little café around the corner from Karen’s apartment. He let her choose the place. He told her all about being a fifth-grade teacher and his hometown in Ohio. He asked her about her work, and the articles he had read when he looked her up before their date. He kissed her cheek outside the café.

Marci had set them up. Foggy insisted that he had tried to protest, but Karen doubted it. He had been worried about her, since the church, since the funeral. Since the hospital.

She had told him about what happened, that day. She couldn’t help it. A few drinks at Josie’s, just the two of them, and everything spilled out. He couldn’t understand it, had never really understood it, but he tried. He could see what it meant to Karen, and he tried. She loved him for that.

It was months before Karen felt like doing anything other than working and occasionally sleeping. She hardly ate. She wasn’t hungry. She lived on caffeine and a few bites of nearly-expired takeout and every time she closed her eyes, she saw him.

So, when Foggy came to her, Marci at his side, those hopeful looks on their faces, she couldn’t say no. Frank had given her his answer. He said no. He left. He pushed her away. She had to move on. For her own sake, if not for his. She had to do something for herself. She had to stop waiting around for something that didn’t exist. That couldn’t exist.

Their second date was dinner. He picked the place. It was cool, or trying to be. He told her about his family. He asked her about hers. She didn’t tell him everything, but she told him enough. He walked her home and kissed her at the bottom of the steps. It wasn’t raining for this first kiss, but it was nice. It warmed some of those frozen corners of her heart that she was sure would never thaw.

By the third date, Karen told herself she was ready. She knew the rules, the expectations. It was time. He was a nice man. She could do this. She needed to do this.

She wondered if he could feel it too. She hardly heard what he told her over dinner about his interminable faculty meeting and his bumbling student teacher who was too afraid to grade a paper. He didn’t seem to be listening very closely when she told him about Foggy and Matt’s argument about which Star Wars movie was the best cinematically versus which was the most entertaining. It didn’t matter.

He walked her home again, and he hesitated at the bottom of the steps. Karen took his hand and smiled, leading him up to her apartment. She had tidied up. She planned for this.

He kissed her again. She kissed him back. She wanted to feel good. She wanted to feel wanted. She wanted to stop feeling so goddamn hollow all the time.

But when he pressed her back into the mattress, kissed her neck, trailed his hands down her sides, Karen looked up at him and saw those eyes. Those brown eyes that had been haunting her dreams for years now, if she was honest about it. She saw a bruised and bloody and broken man, felt rough hands against her skin, hands that didn’t belong to a schoolteacher. She couldn’t see the man who was actually there in front of her, touching her, being with her. The man who actually wanted her.

“Wait,” she said, pushing him away. “Wait. I can’t. I can’t do this.”

He was a good man. But he wasn’t the man she wanted. She wasn’t ready for him. She wasn’t sure she ever would be.

She knew she’d never see him again. It should have hurt. It didn’t.

She curled in on herself, feeling emptier than ever. She wanted to cry, but it was like she had run out of tears. She had already given them all to the man who didn’t want them. Didn’t want her.

But thinking back to that day, no matter what he said, his eyes told a different story. She had thought about them so long, and she knew what she had seen, that day in the hospital. He leaned closer. She knew he did. He would have kissed her, with just a second more time alone. She was almost sure.

She woke, hours later, to a gentle tap on her window. Her hands went immediately to the gun in her bedside table. She pointed it at the shadow she could see behind the curtains.

“Hands up,” she said, glad that her voice didn’t shake. She knew, before she pushed the curtains aside, who was out there. Somewhere, deep down, she knew it had to be him. Of course, he would show up tonight. Of course he was here now.

“It’s me, Karen.” She opened the window. Of course she did.

“What do you want, Frank?” The words felt bitter in her mouth. His name felt bitter in her mouth. It hung in the air between them.

“Everything okay?”

Her eyes narrowed as she lowered the gun. “Is everything okay? Let me see, Frank. It’s two o’clock in the goddamn morning and you’re on my fire escape and you have the audacity to ask me if everything is okay?”

Frank held up his hands, eyes wide. 

“What are you doing here?” She was tired. She had been ignoring it for months, but Karen was suddenly seized with a bone-deep exhaustion that nearly toppled her. “Just tell me and go.”

“Tell you?” Confusion knitted his brow. “Tell you what?”

“What you need. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To ask for my help?”

“Can I just come in?”

Karen stepped back and waved him inside, wrapping her arms around herself after putting her gun back on the table. As if that could protect her. As if Frank wouldn’t find some way to tear her apart, no matter what she did or how hard she tried.

“Karen, I —”

“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t explain.  _ Don’t _ apologize. Just tell me what you need from me and be on your way.” It would be easier that way.

“That how it is now?” 

“That’s how you wanted it. You made that pretty damn clear.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” He paced towards her bed, and back towards her. He was agitated. Upset. 

“You know what, Frank? It doesn’t matter.  _ What do you want _ ?”

“You, goddammit!”

Karen froze. “What?”

“I came here because I missed you, Karen. As fucked up and stupid as that might be. I’m here for you.” 

She pressed her fingers to her mouth. She was dreaming. She had to be. The anger didn’t ebb away, like she expected, just flashed brighter as she kept looking at him.

“And what did you think would happen, Frank?” 

“What?”

“What did you think would happen, when you told me that? Did you think I would just fall into your arms, grateful you finally came around? Just forget what happened last time I saw you?”

“No, of course not.”   
“Then what, Frank?”

“I just thought,” he said, running a hand over his hair. “I thought maybe…”

Karen wanted to scream. This man was infuriating. She swallowed it and tried to keep her voice steady. “Maybe we could give it a try? See where it goes?” He shrugged, looking down at his boots. 

“We know where it goes, Frank. We both know exactly where it will go. Are you ready for that?”

“Are you?” he shot back, eyes snapping back up to meet hers. There it was. There he was. Those eyes, burning into her with that fire that always drew her back in. He wasn’t backing down now. He was ready to fight. Good. He needed to. She was tired of being the one always fighting for them. 

“God, you really weren’t listening in that hospital room, were you? I told you I was ready, months ago.” 

“Tell me again.”

“Tell me once, Frank. Tell me this is what you want.” She needed him to say the words. After the last time, she needed him to say it. At least once.

“Karen.”

“Say it, Frank.”

He looked at her and sighed, fingertips trailing over his hair. “But you know already.”

“Not the point, Frank.”

“Then what is the point, Karen?” He was close to her now. So close she could feel his breath on her face. So close she could lean against him again. So close it was like no time had passed at all.

But it had. Time had passed. Too much. Too much to let this go that easily.

“The point is, Frank, that you left. You told me no, and you left. I think the least you can do is tell me that you really want this. That you want me.”

She folded her arms. She wasn’t going to break first. She wasn’t going to touch him. Not until he said it.

“That the least I can do?” he growled, and Karen felt a shiver break over her, goosebumps rising on her arms. 

She was going to say something. She was. She wasn’t done with him yet. She had so much more to say. So much more to get through that thick skull of his. But when Frank kissed her, every thought left her except one. She had to keep him here. She had to keep kissing him. She couldn’t let him leave again.

His arms locked around her and she wound her hands behind his head. He was still angry; she could feel it in the way his fingers gripped her waist, in the way his teeth scraped against her lips, in the way his tongue claimed hers. She was angry, too. Angry they had waited so long. Angry she was already so lost in him. Angry she couldn’t stay angry. Not when he was kissing her like this. Not when he was burning all her rage out of her with a fire she wasn’t sure she could contain.

He backed her up, against the edge of the bed, and Karen’s legs bent automatically. She pulled Frank down with her. She couldn’t break the kiss now. Not after all this time, wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

But Frank could. He did, sinking to his knees and smoothing his hands over her skirt, down to her knees. A surge of heat rushed to Karen’s core and she watched him. He watched her. His eyes never left hers, even as he found the zipper and urged it down an inch. The roughness of his fingers against her skin was almost enough to send her over the edge.

Frank smiled when she trembled under his touch. “Up,” he murmured, and Karen lifted her hips so he could slide her skirt off. Her panties too. 

His hands were back on her before she could breathe. Goosebumps rose wherever his fingertips fell. He hardly touched her, hands sliding over her bare skin like he was studying her, like he was trying to learn every inch of her, one finger length at a time. 

She reached for him, but he batted her hands away gently with a shake of his head.

“Relax.” He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee. He lifted her ankles gently, mouth wet and warm against her skin before he stretched them to rest on his shoulders. 

He shifted closer, and Karen’s legs bent, pulling him towards her. He grinned, palms heavy and hot against her thighs. He looked up at her, eyes glinting with emotion as he stared through her. Into her. Karen realized she had stopped breathing. Every nerve in her body was lighting up under his touch.

“Let me make it up to you,” he mumbled, nosing at her clit. Karen groaned and leaned back, hands bunching in the comforter. 

Frank took his time, tongue searching out every place that made her squirm or moan or cry out. And then he did it again. And again.

He wasn’t even using his hands, just his tongue, and Karen felt her muscles tensing. Frank sat back on his heels and looked up at her, face shiny and breathing hard. He grinned, teeth sharp in the dim light.

“What do you want, Karen?” He traced his tongue over her clit again, with just enough force to nearly send her through the roof. “Tell me.” His breath was warm, and it tickled against her skin. He was maddening.

“I want you to get up here and fuck me, Frank.” She meant to sound commanding. Her voice broke with the effort of keeping it steady.

He licked his lips and shook his head. “In a minute. Least I can do, right?”

She felt him smirking as his mouth closed over her again. He slid one thick finger into her and Karen shook with the effort of holding herself together. She wanted to feel him inside her when she came apart.

“Come on, Karen. Let go.”

She shook her head and his smile widened. He slid another finger inside and twisted, tongue circling her clit faster and faster until she couldn’t control it any longer. She came with a strangled cry, legs tightening around his head. 

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, kissing up her stomach and pushing her shirt up and over her head. “I’m not done.”

“Fuck you, Frank.” Karen was blushing now. His smirk was pissing her off all over again. She pushed him over and straddled his hips.

“That’s it.” Another surge of pleasure shot through her at the friction of his jeans against her center. “That’s my girl.”

“Shut up.” She fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and Frank helped her pull it off his shoulders. Karen traced her fingers over the bullet scars, the bruises, the painful reminders of what Frank had been through. He still wore his wedding ring around his neck. It didn’t bother her. She was surprised by that. He was here. With her. He wanted to be. He still hadn’t said it, but Frank was more of a man of action. He was showing her. Words could wait.

“You still in there?” His hand came up to cradle her face. The glow of affection in his eyes was almost too soft for her to bear. She wasn’t ready for that. She needed to feel him. She needed to know. They could get into all their feelings later. They would. She would make sure of it.

“Pants,” she grunted, lifting her hips and helping Frank unbuckle and slide his jeans off to crumple in a pile on the floor. He toed out of his boots and there they were. Nothing between them but skin and sweat and the history they shared. 

She settled against him again, sliding her slick heat against his cock. Frank growled, fingers digging into her hips. She lay against his chest, breasts dragging along his chest as she ground into him. She was so wet, so ready.

She reached between them and guided him to her entrance. 

“Tell me, Frank,” she said, legs shaking with the effort of holding herself over him when all she wanted was to sink down, feel him inside her. “Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me.”

“Fuck, Karen,” he grunted, looking up at her with those pleading, desperate brown eyes. “You know. You already know.” He sighed, kissing her neck. “I want you. I’m here.”

It was Karen’s turn to smile now, as she pressed her lips to his again, sliding down his length with a low moan. “Good.”

Feeling him inside her was more than she could take. Sparks of pleasure raced over her skin as her whole body tingled with the feeling of touching Frank. Frank touching her. She stayed there, for a long moment, breathing with him. She wanted to stay here, wrapped around him, as long as she could. Nothing else mattered.

When she started to circle her hips, she could already feel another climax building. She held on as long as she could, grinding her clit against him. Frank sat up, hips meeting hers with every thrust. He buried his face in her breasts, pressing open-mouthed kisses to every inch of skin he could reach, tongue searing into her like a brand. She was his. She always was. Karen’s head fell back as she felt Frank’s hips rocking up to meet hers, harder and harder with each thrust. Her walls clenched around him as her orgasm broke over her like a wave.

“Karen,” he mumbled against her neck. “Fuck, Karen.”

She hung on, riding him through the aftershocks as he kept up the pace. He was nearly sobbing her name as he came with a shudder, muscles tensing underneath her. He squeezed his arms around her and Karen stroked his hair. She was shaking. So was he.

She climbed off him and tugged him up to lay beside her. His arm curled around her shoulders and she rested her cheek on his chest. She listened to his heart beating, felt his lungs expanding, and she knew.

She knew this was it. He was it. He had been. She had known it. But now? Now, there was no going back. No trying to move on. 

This was after. And it was everything. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, because this fic would just not leave me alone until I finished it. As always, kudos and comments are so, so appreciated!


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